


Roads Untravelled

by riverchic1998



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Hellhounds, M/M, Minor Violence, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-12
Updated: 2012-11-12
Packaged: 2017-11-18 13:25:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/561552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riverchic1998/pseuds/riverchic1998
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean wakes up in a field next to his empty grave, with a large bite on his side, a growling hellhound insistent on keeping him safe, and no recollection of how he got out of the pit. With the help of Bobby and the hellhound, Dean sets out to find his brother. Though both of them have changed in the three months since Dean's been gone, one thing will always remain the same: no matter what secrets they keep from each other, the most important person to Sam and Dean Winchester is his brother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for spn-reversebang on LJ in 2012. While this isn't my first fanfiction for SPN, it is my first Sam/Dean. There are brief mentions of torture, so beware. AU after season three.
> 
> Hope you enjoy. Thanks to lightthesparks and Jacy for the art and beta. More detailed notes at the end of the fic.

Dean wakes up to blue skies and a cool breeze. He’s experienced mirages of freedom before, but this time the smells in the air are sharper, the bird calls louder, and the ever-present taste of decay at the back of his throat is gone. For a moment, he allows himself to hope, something he trained himself out of after ten years in the pit.

He glances around and finds himself in a field of some sort, with a few trees off to the side. He’s lying at the edge of a large, gaping hole where something appears to have been pulled from beneath the ground.

He inhales, chokes and rolls onto his side, which only furthers his coughing as the movement kicks up dust. 

He sits up, eyes watering, and winces. His whole body is sore, but pain radiates down his left side at a dull roar, but still noticeable enough to make him grunt. His clothes are covered in dirt and bits of grass. When he plucks a clump of dirt off of his jeans, it crumbles in his hands. 

On the next inhale, he takes a deep breath, tasting the air around him. There is no aftertaste of sulfur or burning flesh. His hope grows. Maybe this is real. 

Or maybe Alistair is getting way too damn good at this. 

“Hello?” he asks, his voice cracking, and he coughs again. He needs water for his strained throat, but learned long ago that begging for water only granted him lashes and dangling into a fire. “Is anyone there?”

No one answers, and his voices echoes across the field.

Dean pulls up the shirt that clings to his body with dried blood, cringing with pain. Just as he prods the edge of the obvious wound, a growl reverberates around him. 

He freezes. That’s the sound of the beast that dragged him down to hell. Alistair always liked to bring a few around, having them growl or lunge at him, relishing in his screams.

Dean looks to his left - slowly, because he learned early that quick movements only encourage an attack. On the ground, there is a faint outline of a very large dog, but the thing causing the shadow is a shadow itself. It’s edges are fuzzy against the backdrop of trees, and the dark gray is mildly translucent even through the shade. 

Two blood red eyes glow from the shadow face, the same face where faint outlines of sharp teeth are visible through a large, open mouth. Teeth that could rip him into him like a human piñata to get at his organs like they’re candy. 

The shadow is a hellhound.

Dean doesn’t know if this is a new landscape that Alistair created. He is in pain, yes, but normally in the false landscapes Alistair cooks up, Sam or Bobby is present to greet him, telling him with joyous excitement that they found a way to get him off of the rack and out of hell. 

But no one else is here. Just a growling hellhound.

Dean sits up straighter, holding a hand to his side and wincing. “Is this another game, Alistair?”

The low hum of a growl from the hellhound increases to a louder, sharper noise, displeasure obvious. Dean flinches again and tries to make himself into a smaller target. When the hellhound doesn’t attack, Dean relaxes his stance, ignoring the pain in his side that throbs at the sudden movement. Dean pants, his body no longer used to the heavy strain without demons cackling with laughter as they heal him, painfully and slowly, because sometimes, the best torture is fusing bones back together, stretching muscles and tendons beneath skin.

Dean attempts to rise to his feet. He can only observe so much from the ground, and he’s too stubborn to sit and wait for someone to come along to help him, be it a random traveler or a demon.

He first pulls one leg under him so he can get a knee up. Keeping both hands on the ground, he manages to drag his foot up and plant it on the ground. He pauses to catch his breath. 

“Jesus Christ, Dean, when did you become such a weakling?” he mutters to himself. “Just stand up.”

Bracing one hand on his knee, he pushes, trying to find purchase in the dirt with his other foot, but he slips halfway to standing. There’s no way he can catch himself and not take a facer into the dirt, so he closes his eyes and braces for impact. 

His weight drops onto something solid, but it’s not dirt. He feels fur beneath his hands and when he opens his eyes, he the ground looks darker, like he’s wearing a pair of sunglasses. The hellhound crouches and takes his weight, waiting for him to finish standing. 

Dean’s hands shake as he runs them over fur, and the shadow ripples underneath. The hound is large enough that he could throw his leg over its side and ride it around like a miniature horse, but if this is real, if this isn’t just another form of mental torture, then he doesn’t want to fuck up his chances of surviving by playing cowboy. 

With a grunt, he leverages himself up, still keeping a hand on the hellhound, which now stands at full height. The thing comes up to his waist, which is pretty big by hellhound standards. The largest he saw down in the pit came up to his shoulders, and that image alone makes him shudder. 

The hellhound shifts on its feet as Dean makes sure he can stay standing without his legs crumpling beneath him. After taking a deep breath, he puts one foot in front of the other, slowly walking in a direction—any direction—just to prove to himself that he can move. The hellhound moves slowly with him, still steady under his hand, ready to help if he falls again. Sam would make some bitch comment about how he looks like a newborn giraffe taking its first steps. 

The thought is a punch to his gut, and he stops, reminding himself to breathe. _Sam_. The name he screamed every day in the pit. The hellhound growls as he lists dangerously to the side, changing positions to hold his weight and keep him from falling.

His hands shake as he looks up, scanning the tree line for that familiar, lanky figure. “Sam?” he asks, his voice barely a whisper. The hellhound doesn’t exactly growl, but it vibrates under his hand. “Sammy?” he asks louder, daring to hope that his brother is out there waiting for him. That this isn’t a dream, and Sam heard him yell. That this time, Sam has saved him. 

Sam doesn’t answer because Sam isn’t there.

Dean twists his body as much as possible to look behind him. By now, the demons would have come out to play, laughing like a pack of hyenas behind Alistair, smiling in smug glory. As he stares at the hole in the ground, right in front of a rugged, makeshift cross, he clearly sees claw marks. The kind of claws that rendered his flesh into ribbons many times in the pit. The kind of claws that almost certainly dug in for purchase as he was pulled from his grave. He holds his left hand against his side, twisting back around to look at the hellhound shadow next to him. 

Licking his chapped lips, he stares at the red eyes peering up at him. “I don’t know if this is some sick joke or if this is real. If it is a joke, then fuck you, Alistair.” The hellhound growls, shadowed skin pulling back over shadowed teeth. Dean fights the urge to pull away. “But if it’s not, then…then I need help.” He hates how broken he sounds.

The growls die down and the hellhound just stares at him, as if awaiting instruction. Dean starts to walk again, slowly shuffling through the field. He tightens his hand in the fur, making a fist, relaxing when the hellhound doesn’t attack. “I don’t know where we are, but if you can somehow sense or feel out where a place I can rest and get water is, I…”

He doesn’t know what he’ll be. Grateful? Does he really have the space inside him to be grateful to a hellhound, even if it dragged him out of hell? 

The hellhound continues to walk, heading off to the right, and Dean follows, his hand still clenched in shadowed fur.

[](http://s644.beta.photobucket.com/user/dream_mancer/library/)  


The hellhound leads him to gas station. A sign on the door says _Closed_ , but a post-it note beneath it states the store will open again in a few hours. Dean is much steadier on his feet, able to walk now without the hellhound’s help, and he debates breaking the glass on the door or finding something to pick the lock when the hellhound bounds forward. The shadow hits the door and it lurches off its hinges, slamming to the ground with a loud bang and scattering glass around his feet.

“That works,” he says, his voice still hoarse. The hellhound moves off the door, kicking what remains to the side with one of its hind feet. Dean immediately heads towards the refrigerator in the back. He walks as quickly as he dares and grabs a bottle of water, ripping the cap off and draining the entire thing in several swallows, not pausing to breathe. He clears his throat, finally feeling like every word he utters won’t feel like sandpaper traveling up his throat. Sadly, he knows what that actually feels like. 

His side twinges and he pulls gauze and bandages from the first aid kit under the counter. As he applies the gauze with a wince, Dean doesn’t know how the hell he’s going to explain this.

He turns to the side, intent to raid the shelves for any type of food remotely edible, when he freezes, his entire body taut and stretched like a rubber band. Inside, away from the windows and the sunlight, the hellhound shadow is darker, almost tangible. The eyes are bright, dark claws clicking on the linoleum floor. 

Suddenly, the hellhound seems like a bigger threat, more real. Dean grabs a second bottle of water but keeps his eyes on the hellhound. When he scoots past to reach for one of the plastic bags on the counter, it shifts out of the way, gaze not wavering. Dean shakes off his fear and shoves any candy bar he can find into the bag, unwrapping one in the middle of the aisle, slowing down so he doesn’t choke. 

He almost feels bad for raiding the cash register, but he’s been dead for—

The thought makes him pause. Just how long was he in the pit? Dean reaches for the stack of newspapers by the refrigerator. The date at the top reads _July 29th._ He stares at the paper with disbelief. Three months. He was in the pit for years longer. “Time moves differently in hell,” he says, voice going low. 

He tosses the paper back onto the stack, and pounds some buttons on the cash register so it opens with a cheerful _ding_. He takes all of the bills and some of the coins for the pay phone sitting outside of the door. He needs to call Sammy and find out what the hell is going on.

[](http://s644.beta.photobucket.com/user/dream_mancer/library/)  


The phone call doesn’t turn out as well as he hoped. Sam’s numbers are disconnected, all four that he can think of, including his own and their dad’s old number. Dean tries Bobby next, but the old man thinks the call is a prank and hangs up on him. He sighs as he leaves the phone booth, the hellhound waiting patiently to the side. An old car is parked beside the building. Dean makes sure it will start before pumping gas into the tank, checking the oil, and heading towards Bobby’s place.

The hellhound claws at the door, leaving very conspicuous marks in the metal, but Dean reaches behind him to open the back door, allowing the hound to settle as best as possible on the seat. His shoulders twitch at having a hellhound at his unguarded back, knowing leather would be no match for razor sharp claws should the hellhound decide he would make a tasty snack. He also knows the hound could track his scent from one end of the earth to the next if so inclined, so he takes a deep breath, shuts the door, and hits the gas, pushing the old car to its limit. The hellhound is silent at his back. 

The drive is almost thirteen hours total, but Dean stops after his eyes close for the third time in less than an hour and he almost wraps the car around a tree. He pulls into a rest stop off of I-29 between Kansas City and St. Joseph, leans the seat back as far as he can and closes his eyes. He tries to relax, but his skin crawls with a restlessness that he can’t shake. He can’t help but wonder if when he opens his eyes again, he’ll be back on the rack, all of this one elaborate hoax he should have learned not to fall for a long time ago. 

_Growls echo around him, the sound bouncing off of rocks and metal. He flinches away, but the sound just increases. A shadow falls over him._

_“Hello, Dean,” Alistair says as he grins. “I’m glad you enjoyed our little break. Ready to start again?” The growling gets louder, the rancid breath of the hellhound hot on his face. Alistair steps close to him and the hellhound growls louder and Dean’s bones vibrate under his skin. A paw tears at his shoulder, claws digging in, sharp and –_

Dean shoots up in the seat, his heart pounding and his side stinging. The first aid he applied at the gas station holds and there is no blood on the bandages, so Dean doesn’t think he aggravated the injury too much. His hands shake as he yanks the seat forward into an upright position. 

The memory is vivid in his mind, but the crisp air blowing through the window and cracked leather of the steering wheel under his hands bring him back to the present. When Dean looks in the rear view mirror, he doesn’t see the hellhound in the back. 

A soft huff of air puffs near his neck and he slowly looks to the passenger side, goose bumps rising on his skin. The hellhound is easier to see with the sun gone and moon high in the sky. The hound isn’t so much a shadow anymore, but he can still see through its body. The twin red eyes are brighter and staring at him from far closer than he is comfortable. 

The hellhound moves slowly, as if it was the one in danger of being spooked. He flinches anyway when a paw moves away from his shoulder. He looks down in surprise to see pinpricks through his t-shirt, skin fully in-tact where the claws had torn him apart in his dream. 

Dean looks back at the hellhound, surprise giving way to understanding. The hellhound woke him from his nightmare. 

The hound shifts in the passenger seat, and apparently it _could_ fit in the front, even if it looked a bit uncomfortable. The seats are low to the floor, so the hellhound sits in the foot-well with its upper half propped up in the seat. 

“Uh,” Dean scrambles for words as he starts the car. He only got a few hours of sleep, but he doesn’t want to wait any longer to get to Bobby’s. There wasn’t much cash in the register -he only has enough money to fill up on fuel on more time. Food will have to wait. 

He pulls the car out of the rest stop and back onto the road, looking at the hound sideways. “Thanks for waking me up.”

The hellhound doesn’t respond. In fact, it just closes its eyes like it’s ready to take a nap. 

“Dude, that looks really uncomfortable,” he says, and he must have lost his damn mind if he’s talking to a shadow dog in the front seat of the car like it’s a person who could answer back. “I can pull over and let you get into the back again.”

It growls at him and he doesn’t jerk the steering wheel too much. “Or you can stay there,” he says defensively. “I was just trying to help you out, man.”

The hound growls louder and he tightens his knuckles on the steering wheel. “Seriously?” he snaps, and for a moment, Sam’s in the passenger seat, not the hellhound. Dean takes a deep breath and continues on. “I’m just trying to be helpful. No need to be bitchy.”

The hellhound’s upper lip curls back, exposing sharp, pointing teeth that glisten when they drive under a street light, the hellhound’s body fading back to shadow and then a more solid image after they pass. 

For some reason, Dean feels the need to keep talking to the hound, even though he’s pretty sure it just wants to sleep. “I, uh, didn’t wake you up, did I? I mean, I know you woke me up, but were you already awake or…”

If a dog could give him a bitchface, this hellhound was most definitely giving him a bitchface. “All right, fine!” he snaps, turning his attention back to the road. “I’m just trying to wrap my head around the fact that a freakin’ hellhound dragged me out of the pit, fuck you very much.”

The hellhound huffs but doesn’t even twitch, settling into the seat. Perhaps it is more comfortable that he thought after all, because he swears the hellhound is _snoring_ the next time he looks over. Dean just shakes his head and drives on.

[](http://s644.beta.photobucket.com/user/dream_mancer/library/)  


They get to Bobby’s just after dawn. Dean realizes, as they pull up to the house, that he has no idea what to tell Bobby about where he’s been for the past three months, or why there is a hellhound almost attached to his hip.

He pulls the car into the salvage yard, and the engine starts to sputter while smoke curls from the tailpipe. The car still served him well, so Dean pats it on the hood as he passes by. The hellhound trails behind him, fading in the sun. 

“Can you just…hang back a bit?” he asks the hound after a moment. It doesn’t give him any indication that it heard or will do as he asks. “He’s a hunter, okay? I don’t know how this is going to go. There will be all sorts of tests involved in convincing him I’m not evil. Just…don’t freak out on him. He won’t be okay knowing there’s a hellhound close by.”

As he walks up the front porch, the hellhound stays back by the car. Dean rubs the back of his neck as he looks at Bobby’s front door. He’ll just have to wing it, and he knocks on the door in three sharp raps.

The door swings open and he and Bobby stare at each other. 

He opens his mouth to say something— _anything_ —but his throat closes up. Dean chokes out, “Hi, Bobby” before trying to breathe again. “Surprise.”

Bobby takes a step back and just stares at him. He’s back from the dead, from hell, after being in the ground for three months. If their situations were reversed, he would be in shock, too. 

“Dean?” Bobby asks softly, his eyes darting all over. He doesn’t know if Bobby can see the hellhound, too. Dean takes a few steps forward, crossing the threshold. 

“Yeah, it’s me.”

“How?” Bobby asks, countering every step Dean takes forward with a step backwards. “How are you…”

“How am I alive? How am I here and not in the pit? I don’t know.”

He shrugs and Bobby brings a shaking hand up to gently prod at his shoulders, just before the grip grows tight and bruising, Bobby’s other hand holding a glinting silver knife. 

_Called it_ , Dean thinks to himself as he dodges the swipe of the blade and works on getting Bobby’s hand behind his back. He doesn’t expect the elbow to the face. “Bobby, it’s me, damn it!”

His side starts to ache, but he pulls a chair between them at the last moment, holding a hand up in surrender and bracing himself on the chair with the other. “Do I seriously need to start spouting off facts that only I would know to make you believe me?”

“Like a demon couldn’t tap into your brain and find that out,” Bobby snaps, still holding the knife. 

He takes another deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment around the pain flaring in his side. “Bobby, I’m not a—”

Holy water splashes onto his face. Dean glares at Bobby and spits out the bit that managed to get in his mouth when he was talking. “Demon,” he finishes before holding out his arm. “And you can take that knife to my skin if you want to prove I’m not some shapeshifter or whatever. Just…don’t cut too deep.”

A part of Bobby wants to believe Dean is back, but the still slowly cuts a shallow line onto Dean’s forearm. Dean winces as he watches the blood well up on his skin and drip down to the floor. One, two, three drops fall before Bobby grips Dean’s shirt and pulls him forward, crushing him into a hug that he instantly returns, ignoring the pain in his side and the ache in his bones from sitting in a car for too damn long. 

“It’s me, Bobby,” he repeats gruffly, squeezing his eyes shut. “It’s me.”

They separate after a few moments and Bobby looks him over carefully, tired eyes taking in every inch. “Do you remember anything?”

Anything? He remembers _everything_. He remembers the smell of his flesh burning off his bones and the feeling of his eyeballs being plucked out. He clearly recalls every single piece of torture he endured in the pit, physical and emotional. He hears the cackling and giddy laughter of demons who came from all over the pit to taunt him, the might Winchester. For a moment, his nostrils fill with brimstone and sulfur and his eyes water at phantom pain. 

Dean takes a breath and shakes his head. “No.” 

Dean isn’t sure if Bobby believes him, but Bobby doesn’t dig any further and. Instead, he places a hand on Dean’s shoulder, reassuring himself that Dean really is standing in his house. 

“What happened?”

Dean shrugs and Bobby’s hand falls off his shoulder. “I woke up in in the middle of a field next to a hole in the ground with a cross planted beside it.” His hand ghosts across his side, fingers not quite gripping the edge of his shirt. He doesn’t know if he should show Bobby just yet, but considering there is a hellhound outside, he probably needs to segue into that topic fairly soon. “I think…no, I know I was pulled out. Yanked out. Drug out.” His brow furrowed. “Drug? Or is it dragged? I was dragged out?”

Bobby glares at him and Dean coughs, trying to prolong the moment before he finally lifts up his shirt. The bandages on his side are rumpled and coming off on the left hand corner by his ribs, and a small red patch stands out in the center.

He pulls at the left hand corner to remove the bandage the rest of the way, showing Bobby the bite marks on his side, already healing over well but still red against the rest of his skin. 

“Jesus, Dean,” Bobby breathes, leaning closer to inspect the wound. “What in the hell did that?”

Just as he opens his mouth to answer, a loud baying worthy of a bloodhound echoes through the house. The bay ends in a fierce growl, guttural and vibrating, making the empty beer bottles scattered through the house rattle. 

Bobby freezes the moment the noise starts, but he slowly turns his head to stare at Dean incredulously.

Dean shrugs. “It followed me home, Uncle Bobby. Can I keep it?”


	2. Chapter 2

Bobby doesn’t take Dean having a hellhound companion well. In fact, Dean hasn’t seen Bobby this angry and flustered in his life. He paces the length of the kitchen, his eyes darting around the room like he expects the hellhound to jump out at him.

“Go over it again,” Bobby says, and Dean sighs. 

“I’ve already talked you through it twice. What else do you want me to say, Bobby?”

“How about you talk more about the damned hellhound that took a chunk out of your side?” he snaps. “Jesus, Dean, I’ve never seen anything like that, except for…”

When he trails off, Dean swallows tightly, looking down at the table top. He runs his fingers lightly over the surface, feeling all the nicks and dents “You mean except for when I was dragged down to hell?”

Bobby finally stops pacing and leans back against the counters, crossing his arms. “You were torn up like ribbons. When Sam carried you out, you were practically falling apart in his arms and I—” He stops, unable to continue. “We put you in the ground as best we could, but both of us knew what took you down. And it was one of _those._ ”

Dean takes a deep breath, trying to explain. “I know, Bobby, but if it was going to take me back, it had plenty of opportunities to do so. Hell, I even slept next to the thing on my way here, and it didn’t do anything to me.”

“That you know of,” Bobby replies darkly. 

“It’s not going to hurt me, Bobby,” he says, standing in a huff. “It’s just sitting outside, listening to us talk. It’s not out there looking for souls to drag to hell.”

“How the hell do you know that, Dean?” he exclaims, grabbing books off the shelves. “How do you know that - that _thing_ didn’t let you escape?”

“Why the hell would it go through the trouble of getting me out of hell and keeping me alive, just to drag me back?” 

“You tell me,” Bobby mutters darkly.

Dean swipes a hand over his eyes. He doesn’t want to think about all of the what-ifs. The circumstances behind his resurrection are sketchy at best, but he’s _back_. The rest could wait, at least for a while. 

“Can’t it be enough that I’m not in the pit anymore?” he asks, sounding tired even to his own ears. “I know that there are a million ways this could go wrong, trust me, but Bobby, I…I just want to take a second to _breathe_. If I get dragged back to hell by the hellhound, then you have my permission to yell _I told you so_ the entire way down. But I’ll deal with all of that after I find Sam.”

When Bobby’s gaze drops to the floor, Dean tenses. “He didn’t answer when I called his numbers because they were all disconnected. Bobby, where’s Sam?” he asks slowly, dreading the answer, because if Bobby is unaware of Sam’s location, then trying to find his brother is going to be damned hard.

Bobby must hear the exhaustion in his voice as well, because his hardened expression softens. “Yeah, Dean, I get it. And I’m glad you’re back, boy, but I wanna make sure you stay topside. I can’t lose you boys again, because if I lose one, I lose both.” He glances warily towards the door. 

“Bobby,” Dean says harshly, “where is Sam? What do you mean you can’t lose us again? Is he—” He chokes up, his throat closing and he can’t breathe, because if Dean is alive and Sam isn’t…

Horrible scenarios race through his mind. If Sam makes a deal to switch their places, wouldn’t a hellhound bring him back? Was that why Dean’s walking and talking and unable to find Sam?

He starts to hyperventilate, his breathing erratic and his vision blurs. Just as he starts to fall, his knees giving out, his weight drops onto a heavy body and fur ripples under his fingers. The hellhound growls at Bobby while supporting Dean long enough that he can slip into a chair. 

“He’s alive, Dean,” Bobby replies quickly, his hand outstretched in an aborted move to comfort him, but stops when the growling increases. “He just insists on flying under the radar. He’s gone to ground. The last I saw of him was a week after his birthday.”

Dean can suddenly breathe again, lungs filling with oxygen. The hellhound presses against his legs and he leans forward, resting a hand on its back. “You mean a week after I got dragged to hell,” he whispers, rubbing a hand over his face. The exhaustion makes his hands shake, but he can’t sleep. He has to find Sam. “I’ll find him. You know I’ll always find him.”

Bobby nods, his eyes flicking down to where the hellhound sits. “It’s still here?”

His eyebrows rise. “You can’t see it?”

Bobby shakes his head and looks at Dean dubiously. “And you can?”

Dean hesitates. “It’s like a shadow and transparent, but yeah, I can see it. It’s more visible in the shade and fades in the sun.” He nudges the hellhound and it finally walks back to the front door and the porch creaks under the weight.

“It seems rather…protective of you,” Bobby replies doubtfully. Dean doesn’t say anything.   
“Just keep that thing out of my house.”

There’s a loud growl from the direction of the yard. Bobby tenses as he steps away from Dean, but Dean just rolls his eyes. It’s a start. 

“Fine. The hellhound will stay outside. Now, what have you got to eat? I’m starving.”

[](http://s644.beta.photobucket.com/user/dream_mancer/library/)  


_Molten gold drips onto his skin from every angle. Dean tries to move away, screaming with every searing drop that touches his skin, but something is trapped around his legs. He can’t get away._

_His body vibrates and he’s forced to turn on his back, exposing his chest. A gust of wind blows across his face just as a drop lands on his cheek and he tries to arch back, squirming away._

_“You’ll be my golden boy one way or another, Dean,” Alistair says with a wide smile, fucking pouring the gold all over his chest. He tries to scream, but the pain is so intense that he can’t even breathe. The gold cools on his chest, making the skin bubble underneath._

_His left side warms significantly, but not from any gold. Something scratches at his arm and another gust of wind puffs across his face. The scratches on his arm increase, almost hurting more than the gold—”_

Dean tries to sit up, his body jackknifing out of habit and fear, but something is on his chest. Blood red eyes stare down at him and he thinks that Bobby was right, that the hellhound was just biding its time to take him back, before it moves off of him, sharp claws shifting off of his arm. 

He inhales shakily. This made twice in two nights that the hellhound has pulled him from a horrible nightmare. These were more than nightmares, though. The memories of his time in the pit were vivid and real, and Dean doesn’t even attempt to go back to sleep, scared of what horrid vision will flash behind his closed eyelids. 

The hellhound lets out another huff and tucks into his left side, its back surprisingly warm. With every breath, it presses into his side, a steady rhythm that lulls Dean to sleep. He doesn’t have another nightmare that night.

Of course, when he wakes up again in the morning, Bobby isn’t happy when he finds out that the hellhound found its way inside. 

“I thought I told you that thing was supposed to stay outside?” Bobby asks in a hard voice, pointing at an area by the back door. Dean doesn’t mention that the hellhound was on the opposite side of the room. 

“He’ll go,” Dean replies, making a small shooing motion. The hellhound growls loudly, and Dean glares at it. “Come on, dude, just park it outside. I said no issues!” The hellhound ignores him and sits its flanks down so hard on the floor, the walls rattle. “Come on!”

“Why is that thing in the house in the first place?” Bobby asks, and Dean resists stomping his foot. 

“No reason and it’s going back outside.” Dean glares at the hound and points his finger firmly to the door, but the hellhound doesn’t move. “Damn it, come on! Go outside, boy!” he says in an idiotic voice that even a small child would recognize as mocking. 

From the look Bobby gives him, it sounds even more ridiculous than he thinks. “Dean,” he says, in the tone of voice reserved for when he and Sam are obviously keeping something from him, “why did the hellhound come inside?”

Dean sighs loudly when the hellhound makes no further move to leave the house. “I had a nightmare, okay?” he responds, crossing his arms. “The same thing happened on our way here. I had a nightmare about…hell, and it sensed my fear or something and woke me up.”

Bobby looks at him incredulously. “You mean to tell me that the hellhound can tell when you’re having a nightmare and wakes you up?” Dean shrugs, and that’s obviously not the response Bobby is looking for. “It’s a _hellhound_! They’re supposed to _inspire_ nightmares, not stop you from having them!”

“Oh, trust me,” Dean says sarcastically. “I know all about hellhounds inspiring nightmares.”

Suddenly, the house seems too small, and he can’t stand the way Bobby looks at him, with pity and sympathy, _like he understands what he has gone through,_ Dean thinks sarcastically, before spinning on his heels and heads to the front door. He needs _space_. 

“Dean—”

“I’m just getting some air,” Dean yells over his shoulder as he opens the front door. Something slips by his legs and he looks over at the hellhound, now at his side. 

Alistair always liked to bring hellhounds around, borrowing from other demons so he could have an entire sled team if he liked. One particular instance sticks out, when the demon went so far as to punish a hound who wasn’t growling at Dean loud enough for his liking, commenting that just because her mistress—and female hellhounds, go figure—was topside, didn’t mean she could slouch. 

Dean yelled out that Alistair should beat on someone his own size, because Dean was a fucking idiot with a martyr complex a mile wide. From the look Alistair gave him in return, he agreed with that assessment, gladly releasing the hellhound from his grasp in favor of adding on hours of torture to an already awesome day, but damn if that hellhound hadn’t looked _grateful_ that he—

He stops his train of thought. Dean looks over at the hound, a faint shadow against the backdrop of the house siding. 

“Uh, are you a girl?”

Dean swears the hellhound _rolls its eyes at him_. He takes that for a yes. “So you’re the hellhound that I…saved?”

The hellhound doesn’t make a motion, but that’s not a no. This put a spin on his entire situation that he was not expecting. Dean bites his lip and walks farther from the house, not wanting Bobby to overhear. “Alistair mentioned you had a master. Is that…still true?”

When nothing happens, Dean almost asks the hellhound to growl once for yes and twice for no, but the hellhound shakes its head from side to side. “You don’t have a master anymore? It—she—is gone?” Dean asks in surprise. “Well, that makes things…less complicated. So you’re not going to drag me back to hell?”

The hellhound—now a she—huffs in what Dean swears is irritation. “No dragging me back. Awesome. I’m a fan of that, thanks.”

He sighs, trying to figure out where to go from here. The hellhound doesn’t have a master, so technically, she should be free, which meant there was no reason for the hellhound to be playing nursemaid. 

Dean scratches his neck as he looks down at the hellhound. He frowns down at her. “Look, I’m grateful that you dragged my ass out of the pit. But I have to find Sam. And I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do once I find him, but…”

He trails off, raking a hand through his hair. “Yeah, I don’t know. You’re a hellhound. A girl one, apparently, and it’s sort of obvious that you didn’t like the pit because you got out and you got me out. I don’t know if you’re going to be called back or what, but I’m a hunter, okay? I’m supposed to hunt things like you, even if you did save me.”

Dean paces in the dirt, kicking up dust. The hellhound just stares at him. “Not that I know the first thing about hunting hellhounds, but I know how to hunt other things. Like demons, who are probably chomping at the bit to get to me? And if they find you here with me, they’ll just drag us both back. So, I guess this is me telling you that you can leave. You got me out and I’m grateful, but I don’t have anything to give to you in return. I’m sorry for that, but I can’t protect you.”

The hellhound lays down, still staring at him, the movement pronouncing her feelings on the matter as well as any words. She didn’t care and was staying. 

Dean walks over to Bobby’s front porch and sits down. “Okay,” he says, glancing over. “If you’re sure, then…okay. Just…stay outside? I don’t think Bobby can take any more of your surprise visits. If I need you, then you can come, but maybe slip out? He winces because she sounds so completely ungrateful that he’s ashamed of himself. 

The hellhound lays her head down on her crossed paws and doesn’t move when he stands up to go back inside. One problem solved and many more to work through, including tracking down his brother.

[](http://s644.beta.photobucket.com/user/dream_mancer/library/)  


Finding Sam shouldn’t be so damn hard. Dean tries calling various cell phone companies, but none of the aliases he gives them match any current records. Bobby calls other hunters to no avail. No one has seen or heard from Sam in weeks.

Dean knows that Sam is alive - he just is, damn it. Dean would know if his brother was dead, he remembers with vivid clarity the agony of knowing Sam was dead. He just isn’t sure how to find him. Bobby hangs up the phone and circles another location on a map spread out on the kitchen table. “This is his last location, best Rufus can tell last he heard from him.” Dean walks over and takes a look. “Notice anything interesting?”

He nods. “He hasn’t gone more than five hundred miles from where I was buried.” Which could only mean his idiotic, hopeful little brother was still trying to find a way to save him. “Damn it, Sammy.”

“More like three hundred miles.” Bobby points to the furthest point on the map.  
Dean traces his fingers over the towns circled on the map slowly before he realizes there is a pattern. “Bobby, hold up.” He holds out his hand for a pen and when Bobby hands him the red marker, he links towns in a large circle with one area on the map at the very center.  
“My grave isn’t the center. This place is.” Dean leans in and looks closely at the spot just beside the pre-inked dot on the map labeling Jackson, Missouri. “Is that even a place?”

Bobby taps his fingers on the table for a moment. “I remember that. There was a poltergeist in a house on some country road about twenty minutes outside of the city limits.” Bobby’s brow furrows, fingers tapping a faster rhythm. “But the only reason that was on the radar was because the poltergeist attacked some kids who went into the house on a dare. It had been empty for over a decade.” He frowns. “Come to think of it, that was the last time I heard from him.”

Dean nods in understanding. “And it would be the perfect place to set up shop once it’s empty. That’s where he’s staying.”

His thoughts are consumed with the burning need to lay eyes on his younger brother. He needs to get in a car and drive to Jackson to wrap his arms around Sam. He needs to be there _now_. Dean turns around and walks over to the cabinet where Bobby keeps keys to the cars that actually run, because that clunker he brought from Indiana probably can’t make the journey to the far eastern side of Missouri.

“Dean,” Bobby says, and his shoulders tighten as he reaches to open the cabinet, because he has heard that knowing tone before, and nothing good comes from it. 

“He’s my brother, Bobby,” Dean responds through a clenched jaw. “I went to hell for him. So if the next words that come out of your mouth aren’t _have a good trip_ , then I don’t want to hear them. I’m going to Sam.”

“Boy, last I checked, you ain’t a mind-reader, so don’t you go interruptin’ me and putting foolish words in my mouth.” Bobby sighs heavily, but Dean still doesn’t turn around. “I haven’t seen the boy since you died. I’m just as worried about him as you are. All I was going to say was the journey will take a while and you just got here. Rest, Dean, in an actual bed. We can leave early tomorrow morning and when we get to Jackson, I’ll be able to help convince Sam you are who you say you are.”

Dean finally turns around, his shoulders slumping. Bobby is just trying to help, not hold him back. He almost apologizes, but the words catch in his throat, and Bobby is waves him off before he tries again. “Let’s get a good meal in us, a decent sleep, and we can be off to find Sam bright and early tomorrow morning. Okay?”

Dean nods. “Okay.”

[](http://s644.beta.photobucket.com/user/dream_mancer/library/)  


Dean doesn’t fall asleep that night. He waits until Bobby is sound asleep, grabs half the cash Bobby set out for their trip, steals a car from the yard, and heads out before two in the morning with the hellhound stretching out in the backseat. Unlike the last drive, having it— _her_ —in the backseat is more calming than nerve-wracking. 

Bobby calls him around seven in the morning, ranting and raving, using some truly colorful language to express his displeasure. Dean lets him finish before explaining that he needs to do this on his own. In the end, everything always comes down to him and Sam, no one else. 

He promises to call when he arrives and then again after Sam stops trying to kill him, which Bobby is convinced will actually happen since he’s not coming. Dean doesn’t make a smartass comment, just agrees and tosses the phone onto the seat next to him when the call is done. He doesn’t plan on stopping until he hits Jackson. Because he’s driving to _Sam_.

[](http://s644.beta.photobucket.com/user/dream_mancer/library/)  


Dean blinks as he pulls up to the house at the end of the drive, not bothering with double checking the address of the house Bobby wrote down. The sun is setting, casting an orange glow on the scene. The area around the house is an open field, with the tree line almost five hundred feet away. 

The house itself looks like a typical haunted house: boarded up windows, a drooping roof, and weathered siding covered in peeling paint. There are random objects in the yard and scattered on the wrap around porch that is anything but level. Dean even spies an old children’s tricycle. 

“Jesus, Sammy, you couldn’t fix it up a little?” he mutters, trying to spot his baby. There are clear ruts to the left side of the house where he can see drive marks, the grass underneath brown and dead. 

Sam could still have easily hidden the car or have it stored somewhere else. The thought makes him cringe. His baby does not get _stored_. 

He pulls the car up to the front of the house. He’s not here to sneak up on Sam. The hellhound clambers out after him and Dean double-takes when she starts sniffing around, almost like a normal dog. 

He walks around the perimeter, trying to spot any obvious traps that he can get tangled in, but doesn’t find any. The house is large, two stories, with what looks to be a basement if the small windows near the ground are any indication. Even though it’s dilapidated and in obvious need of repair, the house appears solid. 

The hellhound paws at the ground in a few places, sniffs, and then continues exploring. Dean scratches his head as his stomach rumbles. He didn’t stop to eat, too anxious to get to Sam, and he wonders if the kitchen is booby-trapped somehow. The hellhound walks over to him and he makes a face. “Dude, do you eat?” She doesn’t even get a chance to growl before Dean rolls his eyes. “I know, not a dude, it’s a habit, okay? So just…strike that from the record. Do you eat?”

The hellhound walks away and he rolls his eyes again. Of course he would end up with the irritable mutt. Exactly like Sam.

Dean shakes his head and walks onto the porch carefully, not because of any traps Sam might have laid, but because he’s worried the entire thing will cave if he breathes in too deeply. The door is old and covered in weathered paint the same color as the siding, but the dead bolt and door knob are shiny new silver. 

“Which is pointless, Sammy, when there is a broken window two feet away,” he says out loud, shaking his head. “How do you survive without me?” He eases in through the large window that is missing half a pane, promptly stepping into a bear trap that is hidden under a tattered blanket placed beneath the window. The hellhound grips his jacket in her teeth and yanks him back quicker than he can blink and she’s the only reason his foot isn’t _detached_. 

“Jesus Christ, Sam.” His heart is pounding so hard, he’s surprised he isn’t having a heart attack. Dean doesn’t know whether to be terrified or proud. He settles on proud. 

Dean leans against the side of the house to catch his breath, ignoring the bitchface the hellhound gives him. If hellhounds could talk, he knows she would be saying _you’re a moron_ over and over again. 

When Dean walks around the house again, he glances through each window, every entry point with some sort of trap around it, some obvious and some so cleverly hidden that he feels another burst of pride. At least he knows that Sam has been taking care of himself while Dean’s been away. 

He doesn’t bother picking the front door lock. If Sam took care to keep anything or anyone out of his windows, then he’s done the same to his front door. Dean sits on the steps leading to the front porch, slowly resting all his weight on the rickety wood. He startles when the hellhound leaps from the ground to the top step in one bound, the wood creaking dangerously beneath. He barely curbs the urge to encourage her off the porch because she might crash through. Animal or human, Dean knows better than to comment on a woman’s weight.

After five minutes, Dean grows restless. He spent hours driving to Sam and Sam isn’t even here. His brother could be on a job, or even moved locations for a while. If Sam didn’t show up in an hour, he would head into Jackson proper for a meal. 

He amuses himself by trying to get the hellhound to fetch, which she doesn’t, and finally gives up after ten minutes. He’s actually _bored_ and absently sweeps his hand over his side, which is no longer covered in bandages, the wounds healing quicker than normal. The skin was still tender, but closed. 

Forty minutes later, the hellhound perks her head up, looking at the lane leading up to the house. Dean’s brow furrows and he follows her motion, but he can’t see anything coming. A few minutes later, he hears the sweet purr of the engine he has been waiting for. Sam’s back. 

Excitement starts to bubble in him, but then he remembers that he’s been dead for almost three months. He stands up, nervously wiping his sweating palms on his jeans, and walks down the steps, stopping about ten feet from the staircase.

Dean turns to the hellhound, who is now sitting up at the top of the stairs. “Yeah, remember how you did awesome at not attacking Bobby when he thought I was a demon or a shape shifter? Can you be that awesome one more time?”

She doesn’t answer but Dean takes her silence for a yes. At least, he really hopes it’s a yes. He turns back around and the Impala rolls into sight. Dean winces when Sam doesn’t avoid a pothole on the worn, dirt road but holds his tongue. He would check the undercarriage later. 

The sun has almost set now, the sky a blazing mix of pink, orange, and purple. Dean can barely see into the Impala’s interior. He squints, barely able to make out Sam’s silhouette before the headlights flick on. Dean winces and looks away, blinking the black spots from his vision and holding his hand up to block the brightness from blinding him any further. The hellhound starts to growl but just as Dean turns around to tell her to be quiet, the Impala answers as Sam pushes down on the gas, revving the engine. 

There’s no question that Sam has seen him now. Dean moves his hand away from his face and closes his eyes as much as he dares. “Sam?” he calls out. The engine revs again. “Come on, Sam. It’s me. It’s Dean. I’ll let you throw holy water on me and nick me with a silver knife to prove it—hell, I’ll even swallow salt and grip iron—but if you even think about running me over with my own car, I will come back and haunt your ass until you’re eighty.”

There’s a pause before the engine revs again, louder and longer, making the body of the Impala shake. 

“Sam!” he snaps, taking a step forward. “Quit hiding and get out of the damn car!”

The ignition switches off and the driver’s side door opens noisily, the metal squeaking loudly in the quiet night. Behind him, the hellhound shifts and the wooden boards on the porch creak, but she doesn’t move from her spot. 

The first thought that comes to his mind when Sam gets out of the car is that his hair just gets more and more ridiculous as the years pass. When he first pulled Sam away from Stanford, the ends were barely curling and complimented his rounded face and pouting expressions. Now, the brown locks were wild and curled in different directions. Thank God Dean didn’t get the curly hair genes. 

The second thought is that Sam grew even taller, damn it, and he no longer looks like his arms are too long for his body. He finally _grew up_ and Dean instantly feels guilty that _Sammy_ growing up into Sam happened because he was dragged to hell. 

The third thought never comes because Sam cocks the shotgun and levels it at Dean’s chest. 

He instantly raises his hands up in surrender. “Uh, Sam, when I said you could test me, I meant in ways that won’t kill me if I’m human. Shooting me will actually kill me, and since I just got back, I don’t want to die again.”

Sam’s jaw clenches tightly, making his temples pulse. “There’s a devil’s trap inside the front door. Walk through it and go into the kitchen. There’s a bag of salt on the counter right next to some fresh holy water. You make it past those and we’ll go from there.”

Dean sighs but he did say that he would allow himself to be tested, although eating salt was going to suck. He walks up the rickety steps, looking at the hellhound. He doesn’t want to risk talking to her just yet, and the shit is going to absolutely hit the fan when Sam finds out, but he hopes he communicates that she needs to get out of the way and move when Sam comes up behind him. 

Although, when Dean arrives at the door, he turns around. “Uh, dude? You got a key? It’s locked?”

Sam shrugs. “If you’re really Dean, you can pick it.”

“And the traps on the other side? Besides the devil’s trap, which isn’t going to do a thing to little ol’ human me.”

Again, Sam shrugs, feigning indifference. “There aren’t any.”

Dean stares at him incredulously before dropping his arms. Sam’s grip on the shotgun tightens, but he’s too pissed to care about that. “Damn it, Sam, are you kidding me? You have a fucking _bear trap_ underneath that window but get a burglar with a set of lock picks and they’ll go traipsing through the house?”

“Most idiots go for the open window rather than the front door. I’ve never had to worry about burglars.”

He absolutely does not bristle at being called an idiot. Instead, Dean turns around and looks for something he can use to pick the lock. “Uh, I don’t exactly have a kit with me. How am I supposed to open this?”

A black leather pouch hits the porch by his feet, the edges worn and frayed. Dean’s hands shake when he leans down to pick it up, clenching the pouch tightly in his fingers. This is his set, and he can still feel the lingering warmth in the fabric that came from being tucked into Sam’s jacket pocket. He swallows tightly and quickly pulls out the tools he needs, aware that Sam still has a shotgun pointed at him. His hands cramp up and he’s still not up to full strength, but Dean manages to open the door after a few minutes.

He tucks the pouch in his own jacket pocket, because the kit is his anyway, and walks through the front door, half-expecting for an arrow to come flying out of the dark and pierce his chest, but like Sam said, there were no traps on the other side of the door, except for the devil’s trap painted into the ceiling on the other side of the doorway. 

Dean makes a show of walking past the borders of the devil’s trap as Sam quickly walks up the steps and onto the porch. He stays outside the front door though, shotgun still trained on Dean’s chest. 

“Salt and holy water.”

He grimaces. “Aw, come on. I’ve already gotten past the devil’s trap. Do I really have to eat salt now, too?”

“ _Two_ tablespoons,” Sam says with a glare as he reaches in the doorway and flips the light switch by the door. Yellow lights flicker on in the front area, bathing the room in a faint glow. He wants to take a moment to look over Sam now that they’re relatively close, but Sam raises the shotgun an inch in warning. 

Dean rolls his eyes and turns back around, walking through the living room to the back of the house. “Bitch,” he mutters. 

He catches Sam’s stricken expression in the old, tarnished mirror facing the front door. The shotgun shakes in his now loose grip as his shoulders hunch over. At that moment, Sam isn’t a hardened hunter analyzing a potential threat. He’s just… _Sammy_. Dean almost spins around and wraps Sam in a tight hug, promising to never leave again, but Sam takes a deep breath, straightens his shoulder, and readjusts the shotgun, cold mask falling into place yet again. 

Dean is the one breaking now.

He walks through the narrow hallway to the relatively large kitchen. There are modern appliances on the worn counters, a sink full of dirty dishes, and a single chair shoved up under a faded card table against a wall. Dean sees the salt and bottles of holy water on the counter next to some sort of fancy coffee machine. 

Sam’s heavy footsteps follow him and another light switches on. Dean sees something glinting on the counter next to the salt bag. Picking up the shining knife, he holds it up as non-threateningly as he can, turning towards Sam. 

“Silver?” he asks. Sam nods cautiously, and Dean makes a small cut, just above the one Bobby made on his forearm. Blood wells up and drips to the floor. Sam sighs, barely an audible breath of sound. 

Dean wipes the blade on his jeans and opens the salt bag. Instead of rummaging through drawers for a spoon, he takes a handful of salt and makes a face, already dreading the taste. Dean knocks back the salt like it’s a shot of whiskey, already scrabbling for a bottle of holy water to wash it down. He drinks three before he can peel his tongue off the roof of his mouth. 

Dean coughs, leaning against a counter. “Son of a bitch, that was disgusting.” His eyes water and he rubs at them. There has to be a better way of proving his humanity. “I’m glad Bobby stopped after the silver knife slicing. I’ll never be able to eat pretzels or crackers agai—”

In the next moment, Dean can’t breathe because Sam has tossed the shotgun onto the table, strode forward, and wrapped his arms around Dean in a tight embrace. His arms wind around Sam’s back, locking tightly. The ungodly long car ride, the bear trap scare, even the salt test are nothing compared to feeling Sam wrapped around him again. 

Sam shakes against him, his breaths shallow and quick. “Breathe, Sammy, breathe.”

“Dean,” he chokes out, “how…”

“Later, Sam. Just breathe.”


	3. Chapter 3

They sit at the rickety table and stare at everything but each other. After he and Sam had hugged and clutched each other for a solid half hour, they finally broke apart and took a seat. There are so many questions that Dean has for Sam, not to mention telling him about the hellhound, but now that his brother is in front of him, where he can reach out and touch him, he just wants to cherish this moment. 

Sam breaks the silence first. “How did you get back?”

That question is one of the easier to answer, because he knows but he also knows that Sam won’t like the answer. Although telling Sam about the hellhound will be better than how Bobby found out. So Dean decides to play dumb and then randomly mention the hellhound, if only to see Sam’s expression. 

“I don’t know, Sam. I just woke up in the field where you buried me with a hellhound by my side.

The look on Sam’s face is comical and Dean almost cracks up. Sam’s expression is part confused and part amazed. His right eye starts to twitch and Dean is about to crack a joke about Sam not hurting himself, but decides this is too serious to joke about.

“A hellhound?” Sam says after a moment. “A _hellhound_?”

“Yes, Sam, a hellhound,” Dean replies, rolling his eyes. 

“The same kind of hellhound that dragged you _to_ hell.”

“I’m pretty sure she’s not one of the hellhounds that was biting at my heels.” Sam’s eyes bug and he looks like he is having trouble breathing, of all things, so Dean continues on. “Sammy?”

“ _It’s a girl?_ ”

Dean pauses. He should be watching his words more carefully. “Uh, yeah. It’s a girl.”

“How the hell do you know that?” Sam asks after a few moments of silence. “Did you check?”

“Sam!” he says. Sam honestly sounds curious.

“Well how did you know it was a girl?” he replies defensively.

Dean wants to tell Sam that when he was in hell, a demon named Alistair liked to mentally torture him with hellhounds, except that a hellhound didn’t do as it was told and was referred to as a girl before Dean stood up for her. 

But he doesn’t. “After all the growling she does after I called her dude a dozen times, I finally figured it out. So watch your mouth unless you want to be a chew toy,” Dean jokes, but he stops chuckling when Sam’s face goes blank.

“You mean it’s still here?”

Dean winces. He should have led with that. “Yeah, it’s been sticking pretty close. She’s kind of outside. Bobby didn’t want her in the house and I figured you wouldn’t either, yet, but I can’t just keep her out there.” Dean doesn’t tell Sam that he’s probably going to have nightmares tonight and she always manages to wake him up. He also doesn’t tell Sam that the nightmares are memories of his years in hell. 

Sam stands up so quickly that his chair scrapes against the floor and Dean winces at the noise. “You brought a hellhound _here_?” he asks in a low voice. “Why the hell did you do that?”

“Because I came here, Sam, and she came with me.”

Sam clenches his fist and stares down at Dean coldly. “I had to watch dogs rip into you like you were just a random chew toy while I was pinned to the wall by Lilith and could do nothing to help you. And you thought bringing a hellhound here would be a good idea?”

He starts to pace the length of the kitchen, his movements stilted and sharp. Dean lets him fume, because nothing he can say will help the situation. Sam needs to get this all out now so that they can move on.

“How do you know that you can trust it, Dean?” Sam snaps. “What if it’s just waiting for the right moment to take you back to hell?”

Dean thinks carefully about what he wants to say to Sam. There’s a chance Bobby knows that Dean lied when he said he didn’t remember hell, but Dean doesn’t want there to be an inkling of doubt when he says the same to Sam. His brother doesn’t need that burden. Luckily, the hellhound has given him plenty of scenarios to work with. 

“Well, for starters, when I woke up in the middle of that field, I could barely walk. She helped me along and led to me a gas station where I could get food, water, and a car. Then, when I was scoping this beautiful mansion out,” he says sarcastically, “I almost lost a foot thanks to the bear trap in the front window. She managed to pull me back just in time. If she really wanted me to go back to hell, she had plenty of chances to take me there herself, not to mention the fact that I’ve slept in the car with her in it. Twice. And nothing happened.”

Sam expression is half doubtful and half kicked puppy. Dean finally stands and walks to Sam. “Look, I know what you saw will haunt you for the rest of your life. You think I didn’t have nightmares of you falling to your knees in front of me with a knife in your back for months after it happened?” At that, Sam looks down, his face flushing. “And I hate that that bitch Lilith made you watch, but we’ll find her and put her d—”

“Lilith is dead.”

Dean blinks in surprise, his mouth falling open, but no words come out. Sam could have donned a tutu and danced the dying swan and Dean would have been less shocked. “What?” he asks faintly. 

“Lilith. Is. Dead.” Sam’s jaw clenches. “I killed her three weeks ago. She’s gone.”

The news is like a punch to his gut and he sits back down in the chair. “How?”

Sam’s shoulders snap straight. “Ruby came back. She found me and started training me, helping me use my powers. Ever since I…died, it’s like the floodgates opened and I could tap into something. She taught me how to hone it. And she helped me kill Lilith.”

“Jesus Christ,” Dean breathes, rubbing his forehead, trying to wrap his mind around the fact that his baby brother took out freakin’ _Lilith_. “Where’s Ruby?” Sam _shuts down_ and the blank expression on his face causes Dean to panic. “Sam? What happened?”

His jaw clenches and Dean leans forward in his seat anxiously. “Lilith had one last play. She had a power reserve, a well of energy that she was waiting to crack open and throw at me. I wasn’t expecting it and so when she released it, I froze. Ruby jumped in front of me.”

“Sam?” Dean asks softly, because he knows—just fucking _knows_ —that nothing about this conversation is going to end well. 

“She’s gone, Dean. Really gone this time.” 

Dean sits back in his chair, all his energy gone and he’s back to being exhausted. “And you killed Lilith.”

“She used up most of her power in that attack and she hadn’t counted on Ruby helping me. Apparently, she pulled a double-cross and turned her back on Lilith. So now they’re both gone. And you’re back, three weeks later, and you have no idea how.”

He snorts at Sam’s almost disappointed tone. “Gee, Sam, why don’t you sound just a bit angrier about that? I can’t really feel the indagation from where I’m sitting.”

Sam glares at Dean. “I’m angry because I tried everything I could think of to get you out of hell. _Everything_. No demon would deal with me.”

“You tried to make a deal?” Dean replies loudly, standing up. “That’s your idea of getting me out? Putting you there in my place? Are you really that _stupid_?”

“It was my last resort! When that failed, Ruby showed up and said she would help teach me to use my powers and that if I killed Lilith, you could get out, because Lilith held your contract. So I pushed myself and almost drove myself crazy going after her, and I _killed_ her, and you were still down there!” Sam’s face flushes and his fists clench at his side. “And then you suddenly show up, _alive_ , with a hellhound following you around like a constant reminder that you could be taken back at any second. I think that I’m allowed to be angry, Dean!”

Dean almost, _almost_ , tells Sam that the hellhound doesn’t have a master anymore, that she’s gone, when he makes the connection and pauses in the middle of the kitchen. The hellhound’s _mistress_ is _dead_ and suddenly Dean is brought back. Sam kills Lilith and suddenly Dean is brought back. 

Dean almost tells Sam that Ruby was right, that by killing Lilith, Sam freed Dean. But he doesn’t, because he decides not to tell Sam anything about hell. He’s got enough to deal with and even though he claims to be angry, Dean knows that he’s scared, almost terrified. He hears the small tremor in Sam’s voice and notices how his eyes dart all over the room, checking for trouble. He’s tense, tired, and worried that Dean will just disappear right before his eyes.

He holds out a hand, calming, and slowly walks toward Sam, treating him like a wounded animal. “Nothing is going to happen, Sammy. I’m not going anywhere, okay? I’m staying right here with you.”

Sam looks around, his expression almost nervous. “Where is it?”

“She’s outside,” Dean replies, looking down the narrow hallway that leads to the porch. When he squints, he sees the outline of the hound at the door. “She won’t make any trouble, I promise, but she’s not going anywhere. Even Bobby noticed how possessive she is.”

When he faces Sam again, he tries to give him a small smile that turns into a grimace. “Let’s just focus on us, okay? It’s the Sam and Dean show, just for a little while longer.”

Sam nods and Dean claps him on the shoulder. The time together would do them well.

[](http://s644.beta.photobucket.com/user/dream_mancer/library/)  


When Bobby calls a week later with news of a job, Dean is fucking _relieved_ , and Sam seems to be as well. They spent the previous seven days trying to hold conversations to no avail, tip-toeing around each other, worried that every single word or action would send the other into an emotional tailspin. 

The job is a simple salt and burn Bobby seems reluctant to hand over, but he has other things that need to be dealt with that are a higher priority. Dean doesn’t care and happily takes down all the information. The job is close, only about four hours away.

Sam loads up the trunk, double checking supplies and tossing in their duffle bags with extra clothes in case they need to stay longer, when he gives Dean a strange look for carrying out heavy pads and blankets. “What are you doing?”

Dean returns the strange look. “This is my baby. I don’t care how careful she is, the hellhound has got some claws on her, and I can’t afford to reupholster an entire bench seat. Hopefully, these will protect the leather.”

Sam freezes and his face goes blank. Dean tosses the blankets in the back and straightens. “What?”

“It’s coming with us?” Sam asks after shifting, glancing around, looking for the hellhound. Like Bobby, Sam can’t actually see the hellhound like Dean can.

Dean doesn’t bother pointing out that she’s been sitting at the bottom of the stairs the entire time and Sam has almost walked over her twice already. “Of course she is.”

“Why?”

Dean had bent down to start arranging the blankets but stands back up again with a huff. “Because I said so, Sam. Where I go, she goes. That okay with you, Princess?” Sam looks doubtful. “If she wanted to hurt you, she would have already, and you know it. She’s done nothing all week. She’ll stay out of the way.”

Sam’s jaw clenches and he plants his feet, straightening his shoulders. “He’s not coming with us, Dean.”

“ _She_ ,” he responds with bite. “She’s not going to take me back, okay? I’m going to get rid of this spirit, and she’s coming with me.”

“How do we know that she won’t betray us?” Sam asks, ignoring the low growling coming from the porch. “She’s from hell, right? From the pit? How do you know she didn’t drag you down there in the first place? What’s to stop her from doing it again?”

Dean makes a tight fist with his hands. “Because she brought me back, Sam!”

Sam stops, his expression freezing on his face. “What?” he asks softly. “I thought you said you didn’t know how you got back.”

Of course Dean would blurt out his bigger secret to Sam when they were having an argument. That really was on par for them. He forces himself to take a deep breath. “I…I don’t remember much,” he says, hating each lie as much as the last. “One minute I was in the pit and the next, I was on the ground next to my grave with a hole in my side and a hellhound waiting to help me up.”

He wets his lips, his eyes straying to the hellhound on the porch. Sam knows he has nightmares and Dean knows that Sam has nightmares, but they never talk about them. At least Dean has someone to sit through them with.

The hellhound walks forward and stops a few feet away from him. Dean pulls the door to the back seat open and she hops in, settling down on the blankets and pads. He pauses before shutting the door, palming the keys, worried about what he would see when he looks up at Sam. 

Sam bites his lip, looking past Dean to the hellhound in the backseat. “Why?” he asks softly. 

Dean rubs the back of his neck. “I don’t know.” He coughs, trying to expel the awkward tension. “I mean, damn, I just figured out she’s a girl.”

Sam snorts and slowly walks toward Dean, his gaze flicking back and forth between Dean and the hellhound. “I guess…” he says, trailing off. 

Dean’s hand comes up to grasp his shoulder. “Nothing bad will happen, Sam.”

[](http://s644.beta.photobucket.com/user/dream_mancer/library/)  


The quick salt and burn that Bobby promises them is anything but. Instead of one vengeful spirit, there are a dozen and a demon in the middle, egging them on. Sam and Dean figure out that they are in over their heads when Sam gets kicked across the room and Dean is punched down through the ceiling. 

They find shelter behind an overturned couch. “Jesus Christ, why can’t things be simple anymore!” 

“We don’t have enough salt for all of them, Dean!” Sam says, wincing when another ghost comes screaming towards them. He slashes forward with an iron fire poker, and the spirit vanishes, but it’s only temporary.. 

“That’s because you used it all to make a ring around the house!” Dean shouts, firing a round of salt from the shotgun. He’s running out of those as well. His back aches from where he hit the ceiling and a cut over his eyebrow won’t stop bleeding. Dean wipes at it quickly to stop the blood from getting in his line of sight. “Which, great plan, now they’re all stuck in here with us!”

“I agree, Sam, not your best choice,” a voice calls out from the other side of the room. Both Dean and Sam tense and glance at each other. That would be the demon stirring up so much trouble for them, making sure the pile of bodies in the basement can’t be reached so they can be destroyed. “Though still not as bad as following a demon around like a lovesick puppy and doing her bidding.”

Sam clenches the iron poker tightly in his hands, and Dean lurches back when another ghost comes near them. He can’t shoot it, so he yells at Sam, who quickly swings in a wide arc, making the ghost disappear. The demon cackles, knowing that he has them flustered. Dean wants to punch the son of a bitch in the face. 

“Sammy,” Dean says after firing another round through a spirit trying to sneak up on them, “we aren’t prepared for this shit.”

Sam pants and leans back against the couch. “Bobby is going to drink himself to death after this,” he replies, rolling his head over to look at Dean. “You know that, right? He’s going to blame himself for this.”

But this wasn’t Bobby’s fault either. They should have researched the area better, scoped out the family home, and fucking _noticed_ there was a demon traipsing around their haunting site. He huffs angrily because they knew better, damn it. “At least they’re stuck here,” he says. “That salt line is solid.”

A large blast of wind blows into the house, busting out most of the windows. Dean’s eyes sting. Sam shouts as well, rubbing his eyes. 

“Son of a bitch. You broke the salt line.”

The demon doesn’t answer because he’s too busy screaming. 

Dean stands up quickly, looking at the last place he had seen the demon standing with burning eyes. The demon was now on the ground, thrashing from side to side. Sam stands beside him, squinting against his tears. “What the hell is going on?”

He can’t see what is happening, but Dean can. The hellhound stands over the demon, digging its claws into the flesh like it’s wet toilet paper. The sight makes Dean’s stomach heave, but he shoves at Sam, pushing him to the door to the basement. “Come on, we have to get the bodies toasted.”

Sam shakes his head and rubs at his eyes again, and Dean is grateful that he can’t see very well either, since the noises the demon is making are nauseating on their own. 

By the time they salt and burn the bodies in the basement and make their way up the stairs, the demon is dead, or at least the body it was inhabiting is gone, and the hellhound is sitting at the top of the stairs, waiting for them. Sam can finally see what happened to the demon and he stops, his heels slamming on the floor. 

“Dean, did…” he trails off, swallowing so loudly that Dean can hear it clearly in the now silent house. 

“Yeah, Sam,” he says, “The damn hellhound tore up the meat suit and distracted the ghosts long enough for us to get rid of them.”

Although, when Dean walks up to the body, he can see black powder around the mouth and the eyes that should be white with death are still pitch black. 

“Sam, I think the hellhound killed the _demon_. I think it never got out.”

His brother walks over and stares down at the body in shock, leaning down to take in all the details. “The eyes, the mouth…it’s like every mark clawed the demon and not the body.”

The hellhound walks over and noses at the body. Dean makes a face at the moving corpse, but he takes a step back. “You broke the salt line, right? And came in here?”

Sam looks between Dean and the body, finally asking the question Dean meant to ask. “Why?”

The hellhound nudges Dean’s side, the one with the bite, before turning and walking out of the house. Sam and Dean share a look before following her out.

[](http://s644.beta.photobucket.com/user/dream_mancer/library/)  


Sam doesn’t make a fuss about the hellhound coming along on hunts after that. More often than not, she actually helps them, going so far as to save Sam’s life from a revenant. 

They’ve been hunting for three weeks, stuck in a motel in Indiana, when Sam brings up an important point.

“So, what do you call her?” Sam asks and, for a moment, Dean has no clue what he’s talking about.

“Call who?”

Sam’s exasperated face reminds him of a pouting four-year-old. “The hellhound. What do you call her?”

Sam gestures to the room at large,, but Dean’s eyes zero in on where she lays by the hotel door. “Um, hellhound? Her? She? Lassie?”

She growls, making the nearby table and chairs vibrate. Sam jumps at the noise but Dean simply leans away. “Not Lassie, then.”

Sam shakes off the chill caused by the hellhound’s growl. “You can’t just call her ‘hellhound’, Dean. She needs a name.”

Dean shrugs. “Helly for short?”

The responding growl is so loud that the pictures on the wall are knocked off, and Sam actually loses his footing, falling to the bed with a shocked expression. The hellhounds’ claws dig into the carpet and damn it, Dean is _not_ paying for that. 

“Jesus, fine, not Helly. It was just a joke. Ease up with those talons, will you?” he says, giving the beast a mild glare. 

Sam takes a deep breath and sits up. “What about just…Hel?” He clearly waits for the growls of rejection, but when none come, he sits up straighter. “So, that will work? Hel?”

Dean alternates between staring at Sam incredulously and giving the hellhound looks of irritation. “So he gets to knock the y off of my name and you like it?”

Sam rolls his eyes. “H-e-l. You know? The being in Norse mythology? Loki’s daughter?” Sam’s bitchface rivals any he ever received from Hel. Dean can’t believe he’s missed it. “That’s how the phrase ‘go to hell’ was started. It was said that if you go to Hel, as in the person, you would die.”

“God, do you spend all your waking moments reading Wikipedia or something?” Dean asks after a few moments, but he thinks that Hel sounds like a good name for the hellhound. At least she wasn’t gouging marks in the carpet anymore. He turns to her with his eyebrows raised before Sam can make any further smartass comments. “Does that work with you, Hel?”

The hellhound—Hel— jumps on his bed and settles on his pillow. He takes that for a yes. 

“And you’re sure Helly’s out?”

With a swipe of her paw, the hellhound launches the other pillow at him, stuffing flying everywhere. “Damn it!”

But Sam is smiling and…Hel…is settling in to take a nap. 

Dean guesses he’ll pay for the damages anyway.

[](http://s644.beta.photobucket.com/user/dream_mancer/library/)  


At first, Dean thinks he’s simply imagining things. The irritated expression on Sam’s face is just a trick of the light or a product of too-little sleep, even though Sam made him replace all the bulbs with energy-efficient bulbs—whatever the hell that means—and he sleeps better now than he has since he was little. 

But Sam’s attitude and bitchy tone can’t be explained by faulty wiring or Dean’s sleep patterns. His frustration flares up at the strangest times, or at least Dean thinks so, until he finally calls Bobby to bitch and rant. He’s ten minutes into his venting time when Bobby interrupts him.

“You boys are both blind as bats.”

Bobby’s words disrupts his flow, and he almost trips where he’s pacing in the kitchen. Half the renovation is finished, but they still have to put the new laminate on the counter tops and finish painting the cabinet doors. 

“What?”

“I’m understanding where the poor guy is coming from,” Bobby answers. “Even though you’re talking to me about Sam, every other word that comes out of your mouth is about that damn hellhound.”

Dean sputters and tries to disagree, except he rewinds the last few sentences, repeating them in his mind. Perhaps Bobby is right. “So?” he asks finally. “She saved my life, Bobby. She pulled me out of hell and she’s been covering my ass—both of our asses—when we’re out hunting. She single-handedly took down the wendigo that was up in Montana last week.”

Bobby’s sigh comes through the line loud and clear. “Dean, you dealt with that wendigo almost a month ago and yeah, she’s been helping, but you just won’t _shut the hell up_ about it. Before the wendigo, it was the skinwalker and how she could sniff it out without you boys looking for the old skins. Before that was the rugaru. Before that—”

“All right, I get the point,” Dean replies gruffly. He leans against the refrigerator. “Sam’s jealous.”

“Don’t you dare sell your brother short, Dean.” Bobby scoffs. “That hound is a constant reminder of where you were. It’s bad enough that you won’t talk about it, and I get that your time in the pit isn’t something that you can just jabber on about over a couple of beers, but the way I hear it from Sam, you talk more to that dog than your own brother.”

Dean clenches his hand into a fist, his grip tightening around the cell phone. In his empty palm, his nails dig into his flesh so hard, he’s sure to have marks. Dean wants to shout that what Bobby is saying isn’t true because of _course_ he talks to Sam more than Hel. But as he tries to think of the last time he and Sam had a one-on-one conversation, Dean comes up blank. 

Bobby gives him time to work out his issues, remaining silent on the other end of the line. Dean takes a deep breath. “I can’t talk to him, Bobby. He doesn’t need that guilt.”

“You think he doesn’t already feel guilty? That boy has been carrying his guilt around since the moment he found out about your deal.”

Dean hears something slam through the receiver—a book, or a drawer maybe. Bobby sighs and pops open a beer, the hiss after the top is popped off coming through loud and clear. “Dean, Sam knows you remember hell, but he also knows you would rather confide in one of the creatures that put you there than in him, when he was the one person trying to keep you out.”

Bobby’s words knock the breath out of him. Sam could do less damage if he punched him in the stomach. Dean tries to deny it again, but the words catch in his throat. All of his excuses taste like ash in his mouth. 

He hangs up the phone. Bobby doesn’t call back.

[](http://s644.beta.photobucket.com/user/dream_mancer/library/)  


Dean tries to be careful about how much time he spends with Hel after that. He includes Sam in more conversations over lunches and dinners and even tells Hel to stay home when they have to go to the grocery store. Sam has been doing all the shopping for them, since Hel in a crowded supermarket is just asking for trouble, but Dean thinks they need the time to themselves, even if they spend the entire time bickering about which brands to purchase.

Some of the tension in Sam eases, but they both hesitate before starting conversations. Dean knows that getting back to the camaraderie they shared before they both died will take time and a whole lot of alcohol, but he’s impatient and wants whatever the hell is wrong fixed now. Dean slowly copes with his time in the pit, and Hel helps more than he thought was possible. 

Sam killed Lilith, watched Ruby die to save him, and was without an anchor for months, but unlike Dean, Sam doesn’t have a companion. Dean listens when Sam tries to talk about it, but Sam gets flustered, choked up, guilting himself into believing that Dean doesn’t need to hear about his issues.

Dean has Hel. Sam needs his own Hel. 

Jackson doesn’t have a pet shop, so Dean travels to the vet clinic in town to ask about any dogs up for adoption. The rather cute tech behind the desk smiles and bats her eyelashes, telling him that the vet gave a litter of puppies to a foster family just two months before when the mother died. Three puppies were still up for adoption. 

When Dean goes to the house to see the puppies, there is no question which one he’s getting for Sam. The dog is considerably smaller than the others but what it lacks in size, it makes up for in energy. The moment Dean steps into the room, the pup takes off running across slick, wood floors, spinning around when its hind legs run faster than the front.

The adoption papers go through relatively quickly, and Dean has the official yes within a couple of weeks. When he picks up the puppy, the foster family gives Dean a blanket for the trip back to the house. He absolutely did not want the thing pissing on his upholstery, but he keeps it tucked close to his side so it won’t tumble across the seats. It yips constantly and squirms in his grasp, but Dean keeps a firm hold even after he pulls up to the house and opens the door. 

Dean quickly realizes there is no way the damn thing will shut up and be a surprise for Sam, so as soon as they are inside the house with the front door firmly closed behind him, he leans over to put the pup on the floor. He chuckles when the dog starts running in mid-air the closer it gets the floor, the small paws curving through the air. Dean finally puts it on the floor and the nails click loudly against the wood as the pup takes off, barking wildly. 

Sam appears in the doorframe to the kitchen, and Dean laughs outright at the bewildered expression on his face. The pup runs straight for him and doesn’t stop fast enough, crashing into Sam’s legs while he stares down at the dog in wonder. 

“What…” Sam asks faintly, the wet, soapy washcloth in his hand dripping all over the floor. The pup runs underneath it and jumps at the cold sensation on his back. 

“It’s a dog,” Dean replies with a grin. 

“I got that, but what is it doing here?” Sam’s eyes never leaving the dog that is now running circles around the kitchen table. Dean starts to doubt his choice because, holy God, how hyper is this thing?

“He’s yours,” Dean says, rubbing the back of his neck when Sam finally looks up at him with a shocked expression. “I’ve got Hel and I know that we’re…doing better at the whole feelings crap, but maybe you need someone like Hel. So…he’s yours.”

Sam doesn’t say anything. He looks down at the dog, who thankfully seems to be winding down, sniffing at random objects throughout the kitchen. The refrigerator hisses as the ice machine starts up, and that sends the pup into a tailspin of barking and growling that sounds more like a kitten purring.

“Or, I can take him back,” Dean replies quickly, even though he’s pretty sure he actually _can’t_. “If you don’t want him—”

“No!” Sam snaps, taking a step towards the dog like Dean is two seconds away from snatching him up and running away. Dean holds up his hands in surrender and backs away, watching as Sam leans over to hold his fingers out for the pup to sniff. After a few moments, the puppy forgets about the evil refrigerator and happily licks at Sam’s face when he’s picked up. His feet are kicking in the air again and Sam is trying to hold back a grin, but he doesn’t succeed. 

The dog is back to barking, and Dean really regrets not choosing the quiet pup left in the litter, until it pees all over Sam. Then the pup is the _best puppy ever_.


	4. Chapter 4

Dean didn’t really think this getting a dog for Sam thing through. Sure, he knew Sam would love the dog, but he didn’t consider that there was a third member of the Winchester family that the thing would have to get used to: Hel.

Sam sits on the floor with a squeaker toy, dragging it across the hardwood planks as the puppy chases after it, when Dean hears the back screen door slip open and claws click loudly on the floor. He freezes at the same time Sam does, both looking at each other with horrified expressions. 

The puppy takes off in the direction that Hel had come from. Sam scrambles after it, but Dean is quicker, gripping the puppy too tightly, and it yips in pain. Dean lessens his grip, but doesn’t let go. Better he squeeze the puppy too tightly over Hel ripping the thing to shreds. 

Dean sees Hel pad forward slowly, the shadow head coming up as she sniffs at the pup, who still yips and squirms in Dean’s grasp. Sam comes up behind him and grips his jacket tightly, a worried expression clear on his face. 

“Hel,” Dean says slowly, “this is Sam’s new dog. I’m the one who purchased him, okay? That means no using him as a chew toy. He is Sam’s and that’s final, right?”

The hellhound does nothing but stare at him. Dean doesn’t feel confident putting the puppy down, but he slowly kneels, ready to toss the dog over his shoulder at Sam if Hel lunges at him. She sniffs the air again, walking towards Dean and the puppy, who is kicking at the air and sniffing as well. Dean almost chokes when Hel comes closer and the puppy actually tries to lick at Hel’s face. She rears back with a growl, and Sam’s hand tightens on his shoulder. 

“Hel,” Dean says in a warning tone. “He’s just a puppy, okay? He doesn’t know any better. Is this going to be an issue?”

Hel crouches but doesn’t make a move to attack. Dean slowly lowers the puppy to the ground, keeping a firm hold on it. This time, when the puppy leans forward and licks, she doesn’t recoil. 

“Dean, what’s happening?” Sam asks, a twinge of nervousness in his voice. 

Dean lets the puppy go, and he pads around Hel, sniffing all over. She seems irritated when the puppy tries to climb her, but she nudges him back, and he runs a circle around her, barking happily and skidding on the slick floor. On the third loop around Hel, he slides too far and skids into a wall. 

Hel turns toward Dean with exasperation. He stares right back when the dog gets back up and starts biting at Sam’s ankles before running to grab the squeaking chew toy. 

Sam looks stricken as Dean stands, like he’s unsure whether or not it’s safe to play with the pup again. “I think they’ll be fine, Sammy. She tolerated him fine enough, and he doesn’t seem worried.”

Sam looks doubtful. “You’re sure?”

Dean waves him off. “What are you going to call the thing, anyway? I can’t keep calling him the bitch’s bitch in my head.”

Hel growls loudly, and Dean rolls his eyes, about to mutter an apology because this is his life now, apologizing to a hellhound for saying the word bitch, even when not aimed at her, when the puppy drops his chew toy and gives her a returning growl, playfully laying his front paws down on the ground and wagging his tail in the air. Dean doesn’t know who is more surprised, Sam or Hel. 

The puppy leans up, barks, and then crouches back down, growling again. 

Sam breaks the cycle of barking and growling. “Anubis. I’m naming him Anubis.”

Dean gives Sam a confused expression. He recognizes the name from somewhere, knows that it’s Egyptian, but that’s as far as his knowledge goes. He doesn’t even have to ask Sam to explain before Sam rolls his eyes.

“Anubis is a character in Egyptian mythology who ushers the dead to the underworld.” Sam shrugs, his shoulders hunching over as he looks between Dean and Hel self-consciously. “I just thought, with Hel’s name, it worked. Right? I couldn’t think of any other Norse mythology names that fit besides Fenrir, and that was just too much for him, you know?”

Dean gives Sam another confused expression, but Fenrir sounds more familiar than Anubis. “Isn’t that a werewolf in Harry Potter?”

Sam sighs, rubbing his eyes. “You know Harry Potter but not Anubis?”

“Shut up,” Dean mutters, turning back to Hel…and Anubis. He chuckles when he realizes his new nickname for the puppy: Anubitch. He spares a glance at Hel, who slinks away into the shadows, ignoring Anubis. The puppy bounds after her before realizing he doesn’t have his squeaker toy anymore. Sam picks it up, and Anubis is once again completely enamored with Sam. Dean follows Hel, deciding to give Sam and the new pup time to bond. 

Hel lies on the back porch, lounging in the shade as the sun sets. Dean sits on the steps next to her. He scratches his neck, sighing. “He needed someone. You know? I’ve got you. Sam and I can’t talk to each other, not yet. Someday, maybe, just not now. I figured since having you here helped me, maybe a version of you could help Sam, too.”

She doesn’t make any motion, but Dean knows that she agrees. Her ears twitch when Sam laughs and the dog barks louder, but she relaxes quickly. “Thanks,” he whispers, watching the sun pass the horizon.

[](http://s644.beta.photobucket.com/user/dream_mancer/library/)  


Hel and Anubis tolerate each other over the next month. Or rather, Hel tolerates Anubis and Anubis wants to be Hel’s bestest puppy friend ever. Dean thinks that the arrangement works out well because Sam spends most of his time at home keeping Anubis occupied so he won’t search out Hel for entertainment. 

The first heavy storm that rolls through is a doozy. There are talks of possible tornadoes and huge hail, which means Dean stores the Impala in a container in Jackson and drives the beat up truck Sam bought for himself after Dean returned until the bad weather passes. The storm line blows through into the night, and the loud thunder makes the walls rattle. 

A few seconds after lightning strikes, causing Dean to freeze in nervousness, thunder rumbles, and Sam jumps at the sudden noise. Both Hel and Anubis seem equally unnerved at the storm, or perhaps they were feeding off of Dean and Sam’s emotions. Anubis shakes, more jittery than Sam, and Dean almost feels bad for him because Sam was in no mental state to take care of his dog.

By unspoken agreement, Sam and Dean both sleep in Dean’s room. Neither of them will actually sleep, despite the blackout curtains pulled over the windows and the radio playing softly in the background. They face each other on the bed, and Dean blinks, trying to adjust his eyesight to the darkness and focus on Sam’s face. They stare at each other before Sam breaks the silence. 

“Why lightning?”

Dean swallows tightly, memories flooding his senses. Phantom pains erupt from rusted hooks forced through his limbs and torso, making him ache. The metal chains linking him to other souls stuck in hell pull and tear into his skin. Then, a charge in the air, screams from far away, increasing as power rushed through the metal. 

“It burns,” Dean whispers hoarsely. “Why thunder?”

Sam’s jaw clenches and he rolls onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. Dean is about to bitch that he shared, sort of, when Sam opens his mouth to talk…and doesn’t stop.

“When I…destroyed Lilith, a storm erupted in the church. The lightning was superficial, it never struck the ground or destroyed anything, but the noise was…deafening. I thought I would never be able to hear again. I _couldn’t_ hear for about two days after. And…” Sam trails off, taking a shuddering breath. “I couldn’t hear what Ruby told me, after she stood in front of me and took Lilith’s attack. She just _looked_ at me and kept talking, but I couldn’t hear her and she _died_ for me but I don’t know _why_ because I couldn’t hear her because it was so loud and I didn’t know if I was going to die and you weren’t there and—”

Dean reaches forward and grabs Sam around his waist, hauling him across the empty space, pulling him close. His arm weighs Sam’s abdomen down while he uses his other hand to tuck Sam’s head into his shoulder. 

“Breathe, Sam. You’re okay. I’m here.”

He may have been the smaller of the two, but Sam curls into him so tightly that he must have shrunk a quarter of his size. Dean rubs his hand up and down Sam’s side as he shakes, tangling their legs together. Sam’s hands grip Dean’s t-shirt tightly and pull at the material, but he doesn’t care. 

Dean looks over Sam’s still trembling shoulder at the large group of blankets against the far wall where Hel has curled up. Dean almost can’t see through her shape, but he spies dark brown and white fur curled into the blankets as well. Anubis is tucked farther in, and Hel has a shadowy paw tucked over Anubis’ back, her large tail curling around the dog’s body. 

Their eyes meet, and Dean smirks when Hel closes her blood red eyes and tucks her muzzle around Anubis’ head. He follows her example and brushes a kiss across Sam’s temple. He’s still shaking but his breathing isn’t as shallow. Dean pulls him close. 

“I’m here, Sammy,” he whispers, closing his eyes. Before he can even consider his words, he whispers in Sam’s ear. “I know lightning burns because I remember it fucking searing me in the pit. I remember everything that happened. All of it.”

With that, the words spill out of Dean like water from a broken dam. He clenches his eyes closed even tighter, the muscles in his temples straining. 

“I remember every little thing the demons ever did to me in hell. I was there for years and never had a moment of peace until Hel pulled me out. And I know why she did. This demon, Alistair, he was a sick son of a bitch. He would have hellhounds tear me to shreds just because he could, but Hel wouldn’t. She never growled at me or lunged or clawed me or anything else he wanted her to do. And I stood up for her once, got Alistair’s focus off of her and onto me, and I think that’s why when you killed her master and she was strong enough, she grabbed me and fled.”

Dean inhales sharply when Sam’s arms tighten around him, pulling him closer. After taking deep breaths, he opens his eyes again. “And she always wakes me up when I have nightmares of all the things that happened in the pit. That’s how I knew she wasn’t going to take me back.”

Sam looks up at Dean’s face. For a moment, he worries that Sam will do something stupid like apologize, but he leans his head on Dean’s shoulder instead. “I’m tired, Dean.”

He knows Sam isn’t talking about his lack of sleep because he understands. “Me too, Sammy.”

They have experienced horrors that no normal person should experience, but they’ve never stopped. Even after Sam killed Lilith and Dean came back from hell, they’re still hunting, and Dean is _tired_. “Let’s take a break. When Bobby calls next time, we can tell him we need more time for just us, okay? Like a mini-vacation.”

Sam huffs against his neck, shoulders shaking slightly with laughter. “You want to tell Bobby to let us have a vacation?”

“We’ve earned it,” Dean replies softly. 

He burrows farther into Dean’s shoulder. “Okay.” 

Dean grins and settles down to sleep. 

“If you have a nightmare, I’ll wake you up,” Sam mumbles. 

Dean has the best sleep since he came back, and even though the storm has passed by the next night, Sam doesn’t go back to his room.

[](http://s644.beta.photobucket.com/user/dream_mancer/library/)  


They make excuses to Bobby when he calls, knowing Bobby doesn’t buy a word of the load of bullshit they’re selling. 

Dean doesn’t care. They’ve both died and gone through hell, one of them literally, and Dean thinks they’ve earned a break. So, after their mini-vacation, they limit themselves to taking jobs only two hundred miles from Jackson. 

Three months later, they’ve shortened that to one hundred miles. There are a few ghosts outside of towns smaller than Jackson, a few exorcisms inside of the city limits, but all of those hunts are small time. They spend most of their time working and fixing up the house, barely searching the internet for supernatural-related news. Eventually, Dean stops reading the paper altogether.

Before Dean knows it, he’s been out of the pit for a year and the run-down shack his brother took over is completely renovated with new wiring, plumping, and floors. They haven’t been on a hunt in over a month. Bobby calls twice, but neither time to mention a location or creature that needs to be removed; he just wants to know if the “damn mutts” are behaving, Bobby-speak for making sure they’re both doing okay. Sam works at the Jackson Library and tutors junior high and high school kids there during the afternoons and on some weekends. Dean has a part-time job at a garage but also helps out with the Main Street Renovation Project for an elderly couple whose granddaughter owns the town diner and makes the best pie ever.

Dean knows better than to let his guard down, but he’s the most relaxed he’s been in his entire life. Never before has he cherished a Sunday morning where he knows that he doesn’t have a single thing to do for the rest of the day. He takes deep breaths and lays in bed with Sam, who is still asleep but curled into Dean’s side. Dean runs his hand up and down Sam’s back, holding his palm still to feel Sam’s heartbeat. There’s a scar where Jake’s knife penetrated his spine, and Dean runs his hand over the flesh, feeling the raised skin. Sam curls into him even closer.   
Dean turns on his side and stares at Sam’s relaxed face. A thunderstorm rolled through the night before, but he hadn’t realized until most of the storm had already passed. Neither he nor Sam flinched at lightning and thunder the entire night and went to bed not even caring about the storm. 

With a grin, Dean leans forward and presses a kiss to Sam’s forehead. Sam inhales, blinking around blearily. “What time is it?” he asks, trying to burrow back into the bed. 

“It’s early. You can go back to sleep.”

“…why th’ hell d’you wake me in the firs’ place?” he mumbles, and Dean chuckles. 

“Because I wanted to experience your winning morning personality, Princess.”

He might as well get up and start breakfast because if Dean enjoys sleeping in on Sunday mornings, then Sam practically worships the hours before noon. 

He rolls out of bed and almost trips over the dogs. Anubis is once again curled up against Hel, both of them sound asleep Anubis opens his eyes, but Dean prays he won’t get up. He can’t handle excited spaniel this early, even if he did get plenty of sleep. 

Sam won’t be awake for at least another hour, so Dean takes his time reading the paper like some damn domesticated, stay-at-home dad. An hour later, when he hears a thud, then a bark and a growl, Dean smirks and makes a new pot of coffee.

For as long as he can remember, Dean’s lived out of a duffle bag and grimy hotel rooms. He looks around the renovated kitchen and at all of the imperfections. One of the counters is too high and some of the cabinet doors are crooked. The backsplash tile that Sam insisted on is cracked in the corner and the sink isn’t centered underneath the window. But this house is theirs.

Sam stumbles down the stairs and into the hallway leading back to the kitchen. Dean snickers when he stumbles over the piece of wood that separates the tile from the wood floor in the hallway, like he does every morning. His fingers run along the back of Dean’s shoulders lightly as he passes by. He pours his cup of coffee and then falls into his chair across from Dean with a sigh. He doesn’t even bother to take a sip, letting the steam billow up as he hunches over the cup. 

“Morning, Sunshine.”

“Jerk.”

“Bitch.”

Hel growls as she walks in, and Dean rolls his eyes while Sam smirks behind his cup.

“Oh, shut up.”

Sam chuckles and takes a sip of the coffee. “Want to walk the dogs soon?”

“You mean do a perimeter check?” Dean asks, flicking open the paper to another page. He avoids the obits and goes straight to the local entertainment section.

“Dean, we walk the dogs around the property.” Laughter is clear in Sam’s voice, but Dean raises the paper so he can’t see his face. 

“While we do the perimeter check.” 

They have this argument almost every time they go outside, but Dean insists that they’re conducting perimeter checks and the dogs just happen to come along. They never argue over semantics for long and this morning is no different. 

After they finish their coffee and pull on clothes, they start walking down the dusty road. Hel follows at a sedate pace but Anubis races around, barking and rushing between their legs. Sam trips, barely catching himself, while Dean snickers. 

He pulls on Sam’s hand when Anubis bounds too close again, letting his fingers slide down to his wrist when Anubis comes back for round two. After that, Dean just doesn’t bother letting go. 

Anubis runs circles around them until Hel bats him away with a growl. She usually tolerates the dog better than Dean, but even she has her limits. He seems to get the message and bounds to Sam’s side, occasionally dashing forward, but running circles as they catch up. 

The sun is rising, and Dean squints against the light and the clouds beginning to roll in. He sighs, irritated. “Son of a bitch. Guess I’m taking the truck today.”

Sam grins at him. “You know, the Impala can drive in the mud just fine. The road out to the highway is packed down tight.” 

Dean knows that. They’ve been living in this house for over a year, but Dean just can’t force his baby into the mud willingly. Having a second car makes all the difference. 

“Shut up. What time is your shift?”

“Not until one,” Sam replies. “Since your precious car will not be sullied by the nasty rain, can you pick me up on your lunch break?”

“Sure,” Dean says easily, glancing over at Sam, who bites his lip and raises his eyebrows. “Oh come on, Sam, not the puppy dog eyes.”

“I know you’ll be going to Maggie’s before you come by and she always gives you extras if you ask.”

Sam stops walking and juts out his bottom lip even more. Hel huffs behind him, kicking up dust on the road, and keeps walking, Anubis happily following. 

Dean holds out for another ten seconds before sighing loudly. “I’ll tell her I’m picking you up and ask for an extra piece of pie.”

Sam tugs on their hands, and they start walking forward again. “And you better not eat it yourself. Just because you ask for it doesn’t mean I’ll get to eat it.”

He gives Sam a dirty look but nods. He doesn’t stay annoyed for long because Sam grins at him like a little kid. 

“Bitch,” he says, his own mouth tugging into a grin. 

Sam opens his mouth to retort but Hel has stopped and turned around, growling loudly at him. Anubis barks, and Dean lets out a growl of his own. “ _Not you_ , Hel, for the last damn time. Not you. Jesus Christ.”

Sam chuckles, using his grip to pull Dean in tighter, slinging his hand over Dean’s shoulders. Sam pressing a kiss to his temple. “Jerk,” he whispers. 

Dean shoves Sam off, rolling his eyes, but he laughs.

END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First, thanks to my absolutely amazing artist, lightthesparks. I was debating signing up for this when I perused through the art offered, saw her piece, and signed up on the spot. I stayed up until two am waiting for the claims to go up and beat out another author by eight seconds. Through the entire process of writing, she has gone above and beyond the call of duty, making dividers, icons, posters, banners, and being a great sounding board. I’ve told her she’s ruined me for other artists and her pieces are truly amazing. Thank you so much for making my first foray into Sam/Dean so painless! To see the spectacular art that inspired this piece, go [here](http://lightthesparks.livejournal.com/89251.html).
> 
> And last, but never, ever least, all my worldly possessions go to jacyevans, my beta and best friend. After she stopped laughing at me for signing up to write a Sam/Dean, she held me hand and walked me through the fic, pointing out what needed to be chopped and showing me the many errors of my ways. Seriously, this fic would have sucked— _sucked_ —without her help. She endured my tense changes, allergy to commas, and frantic all-caps texting for weeks and there are no words, my dear. No words. Except thanks.


End file.
